If the gushing passage and the clapped whale had failed to destroy the island, Hurricane Actus was on the job. The winds, blowing faster than (200mph 320 km/h), left nothing standing. Loose rocks, vegetation, topsoil, the rocks revealed after removing the latter, the wooden hut, all were blown away. The pressure dropped so much that the air from their makeshift shelter was sucked out, leaving not much for them to breathe.
Then the massive chunk of island dislodged by the thrashing whale flew past the island, its collision path only barely averted by Noah's winds. It still crashed into the edge of the island, causing a massive quake.
"Remember me to buy a couple of floating platforms," Robert said. "Because if whatever keeps the islands afloat breaks, we're fucked."
"In hindsight, that's an excellent idea," Noah said. "Back in the day, we... people suggested placing floating buoys between the islands but the few were stolen or broken by thrill-seeking tourists or by bandits trying to keep others from finding their hideout."
Robert stared at Noah, "If this place was so popular, how did people come here?"
"Through the Gravity Slime Caverns. You know, the realm where the monsters only attack if you get too close or disturb the water. Or at least that's how it used to be."
"I thought you said the caverns weren't used as much."
"They were very popular a hundred years ago," Noah replied. "If nobody fucked up, it was pretty safe. Until it wasn't, a few months ago."
The chunk of island whooshed by again, this time a bit further.
"Can you cancel the hurricane? We are out of danger, I don't think we'll see any further colli—"
Hundreds of debris crashed on the island, were lifted by the hurricane, and sucked back underneath the island by the inverted air current that formed underneath.
"You were saying?" Noah asked. "I'm lowering the essence output."
The chunk of island whooshed past again, only a little bit further away than before. They waited until everything that was supposed to fall back on the island did, and got out of the hole to see the devastation.
The island was a mix of rocky badlands and an open-air compost pile. They could see the upheaved earth, the crushed vegetation, even a chair from the cabin, broken in half coming out from underneath a boulder.
Whoosh. The chunk of island flew past again, faster than ever.
Whoosh. The giant whale flew past for the first time, half-hidden in a nimbus of blood but slower than the chunk it broke.
They heard the gargling of water. The ocean realm was pouring out again now that the whale clog was gone.
A shower of debris rained on the edges of the island, like gift meteors from the Pleiades.
"I want to go home," Amanda whined.
Freddy whined.
Robert sighed.
Cotton and Coal squeaked.
Noah clicked his tongue. "I don't think the launch platforms survived. Without the compasses to guide us, we might as well stay here. Flying out is too dangerous. Not only we would go blind, but I doubt the raining debris would let us get a clear pass.
Whoosh. The chunk of island flew past once again, faster than ever.
Whoosh. The giant whale flew past as it wailed loudly, half-hidden in a nimbus of blood that was bigger than before. Some blood vapor was trailing the whale now, turning it into a comet of gore.
They heard the gargling of water. The ocean realm was pouring out forever and ever. As they paid attention to the sound, they heard some smaller monsters being ejected out.
A shower of debris rained on the edges of the island, like a bad hailstorm in Kansas. Though weather and Kansas spelled safety better than only a box of crushed and bloody razor blades.
"The interval between passes is becoming smaller," Robert noticed.
"Yeah. There's a little-known secret about this place. Falling objects don't really have a terminal velocity. They keep accelerating though the rate of acceleration slows down, it never reaches true zero.
Whoosh. The chunk of island flew past in a blur.
Whoosh. The giant whale blood comet announced Armageddon.
The passage kept squirting caustic sea water as it pretended to be the Abyss' fire brigade.
More monsters were sucked by the vortex and spat out into the open air.
The two from before splattered themselves on the far edge of the island. They died instantly.
Micrometeoroids flew past the island, catching the sunlight and casting thousands of rainbows everywhere.
Cotton and Coal squealed. They started to swirl around Robert.
"Check the Netherecho," Noah said. "I figured out what happened to the water."
Robert looked. The environment around them had around half the amount of wisps one would find normal on Earth, which was around a dozen more than what they were used to at the Puffbloom Islands. Most of them were Water, Corrosion, Wind, and Earth wisps but they had all sorts, including a considerable amount of Void wisps.
"is the water becoming Ether?" Amanda asked.
"Or something like that. Your guess is as good as mine," Noah said.
Robert sat down and started to meditate, dragging all the Void wisps to himself. Amanda did the same while Cotton and Coal continued to swirl around them, dragging the wisps along with them thanks to their racial talent.
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Chunk of island.
Whale comet.
Gushing ocean water.
Screaming aquatic monsters that were unlucky and weren't granted a quick death as they missed the island.
The lucky aquatic monsters were killed on their first pass.
Lightshow from the polished rocks that were falling down.
"I think we should have stayed back and harvested slimes," Amanda complained.
"You don't say," Robert quipped.
"I think the island is safe," Noah said. "We should expand the underground shelter, make ourselves comfortable, and wait to see what will happen."
*
*
A month of real-world time. That's what it took for the situation to change.
No more giant monsters came out of the passage, only the whale, which was now a thinning band of red gore on the west side of the island. But thousands of the smaller ones were sucked out of the other realm and sent to their death, by either crashing on the island on their first fall or burning out on the re-entry as they accelerated and cooked from the heat created by air friction.
The chunk of falling island was nowhere to be seen anymore. it either stabilized and became a new misshaped island, or it was more than ten miles away and hidden by the haze. Since stuff was supposed to fall down the islands at all times and the realm was a chaotic rain of debris, the problem of stuff failing forever was probably subject to some self-correcting phenomenon.
Most likely disintegration and conversion into Ether. Noah's prevailing theory was that the Puffbloom Islands caused particulate matter or fluids to spontaneously degenerate into Ether, meaning that rocks and debris would burn out and flake off, ground against the air as they fell down, and then vanish after some time.
"The water jet coming out of the passage is weakening," Noah reported one day. "It seems that the Caustic Ocean is draining."
Amanda perked up. "How long till it drains completely?"
"Dunno. A year, at least. And that is to drain it to the level of the passage. That passage doesn't sit at the bottom. If anything, it most likely sits about five hundred feet from the top. We don't know how deep that realm is, only that both ether density and the danger posed by giant creatures increase as you go deeper. But this is a good sign. We might manage to get out eventually."
"Or better, people delving into the Caustic Ocean might come to investigate," Robert said as a wild guess.
"Nope. Nobody delves in that place," Noah said. "You'd need to bring your own oxygen, be immune to corrosion and water pressure, and have means to effectively fight in the water against monsters perfectly adapted to the environment, not to mention shelter and food. Have you ever tried to eat underwater?"
*
*
Another month.
The situation around the island had calmed down. Ether levels were a bit higher than back on Earth which led them to set the gathering chamber and make Cotton and Coal drag all that free Ether into the chamber by flying around and moving through the bars. With nothing else to do and plenty of Ether to go around, they worked on their tempering like crazy.
Amanda finished the first stage of hundred wet hells, granite bones, and stoneskin. Now she needed to find adequate concepts to upgrade them. She had to decide on her second water tempering. She showed Robert two Ether scrolls.
"I have abyssal depths and flowing river here. I can't use both as they change how the water in my body behaves."
Robert knew about these two as they were very common. Abyssal depths worked in a way very similar to his biomass absorption. It increased the water content of the body, making it heavier and bulkier. It would reduce knockback and add more mass behind Amanda's melee attacks. Together with her Earth tempering, she would become very, very resilient.
And flowing river did the opposite. It maximized the water flow inside the body, improving circulation and allowing her to move her fluids the way she wanted. it was great for martial arts as it increased speed and reaction time. It also made it easier to use some water-based martial arts. Again, it was something melee-focused Water Archs often used and it was more popular than Abyssal depths.
Between power and speed, the choice was easy. Amanda already had added mass from her granite bones tempering. Getting hit was not an issue but getting hit with the kind of attack that ignored defenses would still put her out of commission. Adding that to the fact she had increased reflexes and nerve reaction time from her lightning tempering, courtesy of the octopus amulet, Amanda could be an agility/speed fighter with the resilience to ignore glancing blows. So long the enemy didn't pin her in place, it was an optimal strategy.
And she had her plants to control the terrain and provide support. Amanda could run circles around her enemies and let her plants do the job of dealing damage. it was an awesome combination. To defeat her, one needed to be as fast as her, strong enough to defeat her tempering, and tough enough to tank her plants' DPS.
Amanda was an all-rounder with few weaknesses. The only one was that she wasn't over-specialized in a single role. Some agility fighters were faster than her, some tanks were tankier than her, and some DPS dealt more damage than her. But while she was a master of none, her "all trades" were "jacked" to the nines. Couple that with the two-star supplements waiting for her at the Samson arcology and Amanda wouldn't lose a one-on-one fight against almost any two-star Arch.
*
*
Robert finished void veins. Every blood vessel of his body was now made of Void-affinity flesh. Which brought him four benefits.
One, attacks attempting to sever his veins would have their energies sapped. A blade, for example, would have some of its metal disintegrated, leaving nicks and dents where it hit his blood vessels. An energy attack would lose some of its power.
Two, his blood vessels were partially immaterial. They still did their function perfectly but in the case they were severed, soon they would snap together again. Wounds wouldn't bleed a tenth of what they should, only whatever fluid escaped in the brief moment the blood vessels were severed.
Three, since his blood vessels would remain in place even without support, it was much easier to heal his flesh as they could serve as conduits to restore their template.
And finally, manipulating Void essence in his body was easier than ever. He already had Void essence everywhere his blood reached. Moving more through these channels was as easy as water flowing downhill.
It wasn't everything. it also had an immense synergy with chronal shear. Since the amount of damage needed to harm him was increased, that resilience made his void veins that much stronger. Most attacks that hurt Robert would become mere flesh wounds, at most.
On the Life side, he kept working on the stage 2 lavi flows, adding muscle mass as the tempering trained his body. Biomass absorption was fully stocked and ready to upgrade. He also topped chronal shear, giving him the biggest amount of ablative damage resistance he could get without trapping a concept in its shell.
And with the years he had in the liminal void, he improved his three Mental temperings to their maximum as well. The tower of iron will now had forty floors, reaching six hundred feet into the air. It was also twice as thick as when he first built it. The intellect fortress gained another two floors, one dedicated to laboratories of several specialties, fully furnished, and the top floor with classrooms, and studios dedicated to the arts. Music, painting, dance, and on one side, a full grand theater. The walls were moved further out to make room for these expansions. He added siege weapons and even cannons to the crenelations, towers, and the star fortress.
He was still working on two tempering techniques. Temporal perception, as he renamed his danger sense tempering, attuned him to the flow of time, most specifically to visions of harm upon him and those he cared about. It was hard to temper because it superimposed visions of the future, complete with sound, smells, touch, and even taste. However, he still had to have one such vision that included that sense. The issue was that he needed to instinctively differentiate the present-time sensory input from these visions. If he mistook one for another, not only his tempering would not progress but also it could be fatal in a fight.
The other tempering was closely related. Spatial perception gave him a "sixth sense", letting him know about objects, gravity, pressure, and other phenomena that disturbed the space around him. Again, it was a massive influx of sensory information for him to process. As he trained this technique, the precision and distance in the time axis improved.
Only with the added mental prowess of his mind palace could he work on these two tempering techniques in tandem. But it already proved useful because now he could discern Freddy's illusions as they had no real substance in space. Though it didn't let him detect the Taulusian when he was using his talent. It would grow in range and details perceived as he trained it.
They were finishing another cycle of gathering and tempering when Noah barged into the shelter. "Guys, you need to see this. I think the ocean finally drained to the level of the passage. The water is losing pressure."